Vevay, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b — room for a real mix of vegetables, fruit, and perennials matched to the local frost calendar.
On paper, cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens all suit these conditions — on the ground, soil, sun, and drainage make the final call.
Even in Vevay, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Vevay lot. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Vevay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
No card required · your full report in seconds
Vevay — the short answer
Vevay, Indiana: USDA zone 6b, about 218 days between hard freezes, across 929 acres of town.
- USDA zone
- 6b
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 3
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Nov 7
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~218
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Town area
- 929 acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 6b is Vevay's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Vevay's 218-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Vevay
Each reading below is measured for Vevay itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredVevay runs about 218 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredVevay sits in USDA hardiness zone 6b.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Vevay is in
Vevay sits in the Interior Plateau — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Vevay's own centroid rather than borrowed from Switzerland County.
What Grows in Vevay
Every plant below cleared Vevay's own zone 6b and its 218-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Vevay?
Too late for some crops, right on time for others — a growing season is a sequence, not a deadline. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 6; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 3 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Nov 7 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. There is slack in a calendar like this — late plantings, second rounds of favorites, and a fall bench that keeps beds working.
Documented around Vevay
Spotted lanternfly documented 8 miles from Vevay, first recorded 2023. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Vevay
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Vevay. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- HINMAN AUTO BODYBrownfields · 1600 ft
- Cowboys Food Store 204Underground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- CITGO RIVER VALLEY EXPRESSUnderground Storage Tanks · 2500 ft
- SWITZERLAND COUNTY HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTUnderground Storage Tanks · 2600 ft
- IN5278002 SWITZERLAND 02581 PRODUCTION WELL 1Nitrate · 0.5 mi
- BESI INCToxics Release Inventory · 0.7 mi
- BENNETT AUTO SALESUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.7 mi
- SWITZERLAND COUNTY SCHOOL CORPORATIONUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.8 mi
- SILGAS INCORPORATEDUnderground Storage Tanks · 0.9 mi
- Cowboys Food Store #109Underground Storage Tanks · 1.0 mi
- HARSCO METALS - NASToxics Release Inventory · 1.0 mi
- NORTH AMERICAN STAINLESSToxics Release Inventory · 1.0 mi
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Vevay's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Vevay.
Total Sites
185
within ~10 miles of Vevay
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
5 Superfund sites (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Vevay
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Vevay
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Vevay, two things run higher than the national average within ~10 miles of Vevay — Superfund (5 sites) and Toxics Release Inventory (24 sites). It's not cause for alarm — it's worth knowing, and there's a sensible way to grow around it.
Superfund: Superfund sites represent the most severe contamination in the federal system.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Commission professional soil testing before any food production (test for heavy metals, VOCs, and SVOCs).
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Vevay
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Vevay average
Your land is one point inside Vevay
Everything above resolves to Vevay as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 929 acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at town scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better local average.
Your Lot vs the Vevay Average
Vevay Average
- ●USDA Zones 6b, averaged across Vevay
- ●One soil character for all of Vevay
- ●Frost dates read at Vevay's scale: Apr 3 to Nov 7
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Vevay's 6b
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Vevay
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Vevay, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Vevay averages can't show:
We read public map data around Vevay — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Vevay average
How we know this about Vevay
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this town’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Vevay’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at town grain anywhere on this page — there is no town-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Vevay
When does frost risk typically end in Vevay?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Vevay typically lands around Apr 3, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 24.
When is the first frost in Vevay?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Vevay typically arrives around Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 24, so the watching starts about Oct 8 — about 218 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Vevay?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Vevay sees about 218 frost-free days — roughly Apr 3 through Nov 7, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 24 to Oct 24, about 183 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Vevay?
The federal record around Vevay is a meaningful one — 185 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (96), the nearest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Vevay?
From about Oct 8 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Nov 7 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Nov 7. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Vevay's scale — its 6b band and its 218-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Vevay's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Vevay’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Vevay's own scale — its own ~218-day season between 28°F freezes, the 929 acres it covers and 185 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Vevay's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6bUSDA PHZM 2023
- Vevay's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 3 and Nov 7 and the ~218-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 185 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Vevay, the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Vevay's boundary and the 929 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6b and a ~218-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Vevay's own centroid, the Interior PlateauUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- A documented spotted-lanternfly record within reach of Vevaylydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Vevay's 929 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Switzerland County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Switzerland County
- The growing challenges every Indiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Indiana
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Switzerland County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Vevay's 929 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Vevay you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 929 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Brownfields record about 0.3 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Vevay-wide figureread your own land →
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